When I was a college student in Los Angeles, CA, I was goofing off one day instead of studying. OK, most days. On impulse, I looked up my name in the Los Angeles phonebook. To my surprise, I saw someone with the last name of Vermette (the same as my name) listed just above me. My family had moved to Southern California just after WWII so I really didn’t know my relatives that well and had never met a Vermette that was not related to me. If you had asked me back then what my ancestry was, I would have answered “Californian”. The short version of this story is that I called the phone number in the book and met my wife. Both her maiden and her married name are Vermette. Many years later, after discovering so many common factors in our histories (and two children), I decided to find out once and for all if we were related. It took me several years of research to find that connection, but I finally determined that we’re eighth cousins, once removed. Our last common ancestors, Antoine Vermet dit Laforme and Barbe Menard, were married in 1669. As many amateur genealogists discover, it’s hard to find an end to documenting your family history. This website shares the results of my research to date.
